'Cowboy Bebop' Animator Shares Stunning Sketch of Spike Spiegel

Cowboy Bebop is celebrating its 20th Anniversary soon, and it has been fondly looked forward to by [...]

By Nick Valdez

Cowboy Bebop is celebrating its 20th Anniversary soon, and it has been fondly looked forward to by fans and anime industry veterans alike. That even includes those that worked on the show themselves.

One of the animators that worked on Cowboy Bebop has took to Twitter to share a sketch of Spike Spiegel that will surely get that nostalgic blood pumping.

Yutaka Nakamura, who served as a key animator on several episodes of Cowboy Bebop, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, and series like Fullmetal Alchemist, My Hero Academia, One Punch Man, and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, uploaded this sketch to Twitter.

The sketch depicts a raw and intense Spike gearing up for what's most likely a big fight. This sketch comes at perfect time too as Cowboy Bebop is entering its 20th Anniversary in 2018, which may even spark some older fans to rewatch the series or nab the interest of new fans.

To celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Cowboy Bebop, fans can even buy a recreation of Spike Spiegel's famous suit and those will ship out by March 2018. Cowboy Bebop has a wide range of fans too, even expanding to the creator of Nickelodeon's The Fairly OddParents' Butch Hartman who drew a picture of Spike hanging out with Cosmo in his signature style.

To complicate things even further for anime fans, Sunrise is reportedly working on a live-action television series that's going to adapt the anime in various ways. Though no further details on this series have surfaced.

For those unfamiliar with Cowboy Bebop, the series was first created by Sunrise in 1998. It was directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, with scripts written by Keiko Nobumoto, character designer Toshihiro Kawamoto, and songs composed by Yoko Kanno. Set in the year 2071, the series explores many existentialist philosophies as it follows the adventures of Spike Spiegel, and a group of bounty hunter misfits aboard the titular spaceship the Bebop.

The series premiered in Japan back in 1998, and ran for 26 episodes until 1999. It was licensed for an English language released by Bandai Entertainment and Funimation, and was the very first anime series to air on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block in the United States. It's often credited by fans from the 2000s as a major "gateway" show to the world of anime overall and has gone on to major critical, cult, and commercial success.

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